Christmas in Cuzco by Jeannie Zokan #CallMeDaddy

In anticipation of the upcoming release of my novel, Call Me Daddy, I asked for stories about family: the fun, the inspirational, the heartwarming moments that make us part of a family. Author Jeannie Zokan takes us on a Christmas to remember...

Christmas in Cuzco

My father inherited his adventurous spirit from his mother, who never turned down an opportunity for excitement, and his adventures started early. By the time I came along, he and my mom were in the process of becoming missionaries. When I was two, my parents, three older brothers, and I trundled off to Colombia, South America.

          We lived in the northern coastal city of Barranquilla four years, where my oldest brother went to school with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s son, then we moved to Cali, the best city on earth. Our family traveled often, and one almost mandatory trip for anyone living in South America was to visit Machu Picchu.

          Around Christmastime in the late seventies, we took a bus through the Andes mountains from Cali to Ecuador, then flew to Cuzco Peru and stayed in a rustic hotel, sleeping off the effect of the altitude. Cuzco is over 11,000 feet above sea level. The next day, a train took us to Machu Picchu where we wandered among the ruins of the ancient Incan civilization and the llamas.

After walking along the paths between the structures, I sat on the ground and looked across the valley to two mountains that were like immense green eggs standing beside each other. One velvety green mountain slid down into the other and the Urubamba River flowed between them, beautiful and enduring. Could it be that, centuries before, a young girl admired that same view?

          The trip remains a favorite topic of conversation among our family, mainly because of a certain wooden flute Dad bought for twenty dollars. When my family gathered to go back to Cuzco, he showed us the flute and told us about the man who hand-carved it and offered a free lesson with the purchase. Dad presented the man’s address scribbled on a scrap of paper.

          I’d like to think I stood by my dad in buying the flute. On one of the more unusual Christmases in my life, he and I boarded a bus, flute in hand, to search for the address. The weather, sunny and cold, felt refreshing, making me glad I bought a llama’s wool sweater. We traveled Cuzco’s mix of old and new with it’s amazing backdrop of mountains, but we never found the man.

          Dad still has the flute, and we all have the memory, which makes that hand-carved souvenir worth a thousand times over the twenty dollars he spent for it in the ancient city in the clouds.

Dad, Danny, Davy, Johnny, and Jeannie going through the Panama Canal

Jeannie Zokan’s debut novel, The Existence of Pity, will be released in October 2016 by Red Adept Publishing.

You can follow her on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/authorJeannieZokan/

on twitter:   https://twitter.com/JoZokan

Her blog: www.jeanniezokan.blogspot.com

And her webpage: www.jeanniezokan.com

Viva la Revolucion by Erica Lucke Dean #CallMeDaddy

In anticipation of the upcoming release of my novel, Call Me Daddy, I asked for stories about family: the fun, the inspirational, the heartwarming moments that make us part of a family. Author Erica Lucke Dean talks about her dad and his 'affiliation':

I’m pretty sure I have an FBI file.  I can only imagine what it says, but there’s no question in my mind that it exists.  My phones are probably tapped.  My house is probably being watched by one of those spy satellites that stalk subversives. My name is probably on a TSA watch list.  Why? Well, it’s not because I lie about my weight—I do lie about my weight, but that’s beside the point. 

My father, who I love dearly and have the utmost respect for, is one of the co-founders of a patriots group formed by Tea Partiers in Pennsylvania.  He goes on marches.  He has meetings.  I don’t know what they talk about at these meetings, but his wife says she can’t understand them, so I’m guessing they don’t speak in the same language as the rest of us. I’m not certain, but I think he may have built a self sustaining bomb shelter in his basement, where he is cranking out elaborate artillery disguised as reproduction furniture.  I’ve seen the pictures of him using a sewing machine, but he can’t fool me.  Those weren’t chair cushions he was making. He’s a card carrying member of the NRA with a framed picture of Charlton Heston hanging over his work bench—okay, I might be kidding about that—and a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Something he apparently never leaves home without, because my father is certain we’re only moments away from the next revolution.  And maybe he’s right. Even if he does think Sarah Palin’s smart. 

Dad thinks everyone should be armed—sort of like the old west, I imagine.  Back in the day when you could shoot a man for looking at your horse funny and it would be considered a justifiable homicide. My stepmother also has a permit to carry a weapon, and she carries her gun just in case my dad goes nuts and she has to take him down.  I can’t imagine what sort of scenario would have to occur for that to happen, but I’m sure she’d be up to the task if it came to that.   

I don’t know exactly when my father became so politically involved, but I’m not surprised by his “all in” approach.  He’s always been a believer in the philosophy, “if you’re going to do something, you may as well be the best at it.”  I’ve always strived to be the best at everything I do, and I’m sure that’s something I learned from my dad.  I’m a good singer, a pretty good writer, I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie, and I can’t be beat at trivia.  However, none of these things require me to carry a gun, and that’s probably a good thing, because I’ve never been very coordinated, and I would probably shoot my toes off or something.

Just for the record—listen up all you FBI guys out there—I don’t belong to any political groups or clubs. I’ve never been to a rally. I didn’t even remember to register to vote until last week. Maybe I should get more involved, but for now I’ll leave that up to my dad.  He’s semi-retired, which means he actually has more jobs than I do, and far more qualified to storm the Bastille than I am. But mark my words, people, if you see him coming, you’d better get out of the way!

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https://www.amazon.com/Erica-Lucke-Dean/e/B00CJ3KTA2

The Art of Embarrassing Your Children by Victor Catano #CallMeDaddy

So Kelly, your blog host, asked for us to write about family matters for her site. I was thinking about this while doing the laundry and when I pulled this shirt out of the washer, I knew I had my topic. 

​​

This Banana Republic shirt belonged to my Dad. I remember when he got it. I was about 13 and we were visiting my Granny in Hadley, MA. He bought it at the nearby mall. 

I was mortified. 

It was an objectively hideous shirt. Big ugly banana leaves everywhere. And my Dad, who was always overweight, filled it out. He was the picture of the Ugly American tourist. Even in western Massachusetts.

Of course at thirteen, everything my parents did would embarrass me. Just existing in my presence was too much. I remember walking ten feet behind them on the streets of Toronto. We had just moved there, I didn't know a single person there. I probably looked more stupid and conspicuous for trailing behind them and trying to act like I wasn't with them. Didn't matter. I could not be tainted by their uncoolness. God forbid I be seen with them when he was wearing this monstrosity.

That ended up not mattering of course. I was uncool for a lot of reasons in ninth grade, and that had much more to do with being chubby, pimply, and into comic books and D&D than any distance I walked away from my parents. 

I grew up, in many different ways. I got taller. My parents no longer embarrassed me. At least they had to try a lot harder than simply being near me. Or wearing an ugly shirt.

Years later, I was working at a financial services firm that shall remain nameless. (Hint: It rhymes with Borgan Banley). I was miserable. The project I had spent eighteen months working on had been cancelled. Since I was a recent hire, it was likely that I would be moved elsewhere or let go. It was not a job that was anywhere near what I had dreamed of doing. It was a jobs that I took because of the money, and I regretted it. Also, there was a dress code. Shirt, tie, slacks. I hadn't had a dress code on a job since I had one that required hairnets.

During this time, eBay was just starting to become a thing. (Yes, I know. Grandpa Vic has been around a while.) My wife was an early adopter, spending late nights in bidding wars for vintage clothes and dolls. One night, while looking at some of the stuff she'd gotten and making sure it was all shipped, I came across a shirt. I'm not quite sure how I found it. It was probably in the Also From This Seller section. 

This was not just any shirt. It was a Reyn Spooner brand Hawaiian shirt, called Hula Highball. Blue and red and yellow, it had a pattern of tiki drinks and a neon bar sign with a man drinking at a barstool. And I really don't know why, but I bid on it. Maybe because I had to wear nothing but beige and grey and light blue shirts at work. Maybe because the colors cheered me up. But, I bid on it and won. I think it cost me six dollars. 

And then I thought of my Dad and smiled. I remembered how much his shirt had appalled me and now here I was buying one that was more garish. Was he at all unhappy in his job? No, he loved what he did. He worked at a university and was highly regarded in his field. Maybe he just wanted to wear a little more color than he could have gotten away with at school. 

It was the first shirt of many. I got plenty more on eBay and at thrift shops. Not long after that, I left the financial world and returned to my true love of theater. I took a pay cut and got back into my chosen field. Now, I too have a job. At a university. That I deeply love. I don't know if I'm highly regarded, but the students like me. And I can wear whatever I want, so now I'm the Hawaiian shit guy.

It seems that no matter how much I tried to avoid walking with my Dad, it couldn't be helped. 

Years after that, my Dad got cancer. It was non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. If you have to get cancer, that's the one to get as it has a high survival rate. it was touch and go for a while, but my Dad is as stubborn as he is caring. He pulled through, but lost a lot of weight during his chemo. He was thinner than he'd been in years, and most of his clothes didn't fit him anymore. Mom knew that I now loved the Hawaiian shirts and sent me a bunch of them. 

When the box arrived, the banana leaf one was on the top. 

Five years later, Dad is still cancer free. And I have a new favorite shirt. I don't have any kids that I can embarrass yet, but when I do I know just what to wear. 

Victor Catano is the author of Tail & Trouble, his first novel and the start of a new urban fantasy series featuring witches, adventure, and a magic bulldog. Visit him at VictorCatanoAuthor.weebly.com for updates on upcoming books. 

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Dad's Best Advice and Cover Reveal for #CallMeDaddy

My new novel, Call Me Daddy, will be released October, 2016, and I wanted a fun way to reveal the cover, so I asked people to give me the best advice their Daddy ever gave them. Here's a list of Dad's best advice and I have to say, there are some pretty awesome dads out there! One of these bits of wisdom will win an e-book version of my new novel. Which do you like the best? Can you add any to the list?

• Never say anything about someone that you couldn't say in front of them. (In other words, don't gossip)
• Be the best you can be.
• Shoot em in the yard, drag the body inside. Lol....
• No license til I could drive a stick. The reasoning: "I don't ever want you in a situation where you're either stuck somewhere unsafe, or forced to ride with someone who has been drinking, because the car you're in is a stick and you can't drive it."
• The graveyard's full of people that had the right-of-way.
• Deny everything.
• If you have to fart while in the company of others do so into the thickest couch cushion available.
• Chew your food 28 times, each mouthful. Then he would say, "chew, and chew, and chew" I can still hear him.
• He also advised in working in a profession that is always needed, so you'll always have a work, like plumber, or funeral director. "You may never need a lawyer or a doctor but you will eventually have a clogged crapper." End quote.
• A leopard can't change his spots. In other words, if a guy's a douche bag then he's not going to change.
• I can't protect you all the time so pay attention. Strike hard, strike fast and always, ALWAYS, hit him in the balls! He also taught me to change a tire and the oil so I would never have to wait for help!
• Always smile at homely girls
• Don't marry a man less educated than you. You will never be impressed enough.
• Never get a pet that's too big for you to bury.
  
• Given enough seasoning, everything can taste like chicken.
• Dazzle them with brilliance and baffle them with bullshit.
• My dad had taught me to drive and he said, " HUG THE ROTARY you'll beat out all the others when you jump on the highway." It usually works. :)
• Never trust a fart.
• My dad's best advice: Give 'em what they got comin. No more. No less.
• Don't ever assume ... it's makes an ass out of u and me.
• Never leave the house without money in your pocket.
• I was born a long time before you and I know lots of guys who do that in this neighborhood. If he can do it to his wife, he will do it to you too. A snake is always a snake.
• Never write down on paper what you don't want anyone else to see.
• Always be content, never satisfied.
• He put the cuffs on me and put me in a cell around age six and said "you like the way that feels?" (I've been good ever since)
• Read your bible every day.
• It will feel better...
  When it quits hurting...
• Always know your way out of a place...
• Don't be a slacked jawed idiot.

And now for the big COVER REVEAL! Coming in October, 2016, from Red Adept Publishing: 

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